A scintillating line-up of performers has been assembled for the 49th Hexham Abbey Festival, which begins next Friday (September 14).

"I'm working on a big programme for next year," promises Kevin Stephens, artistic director for the past five festivals.

Sponsorship, apparently, is the key to a big half-century splash in 2002. With few major companies in the Tyne Valley, money from commercial sources is hard-won.

But in the meantime, 2001 looks hard to beat with John Lill, Dame Gillian Weir and The Tallis Scholars featuring in a programme which runs through until September 22.

The contemporary English composer John Tavener features prominently and that's no accident.

"He is popular and that is a factor," confesses Kevin. "But also his music is very spiritual and it suits the abbey very well."

Tavener, who spends much of each year in Greece, was invited to attend the festival but his music will serve as his envoy.

The Voice of the North Jazz Orchestra gets proceedings under way at the Queen's Hall on September 14.

The first abbey concert comes the next night with the Festival Chorus, with orchestra and soloists, performing pieces by Tavener and Mozart.

Evensong in the abbey at 6.30pm on September 16 is followed by Gabriel Woolf's tribute to John Betjeman.

John Lill, the celebrated pianist, gives a recital in the Queen?s Hall, in association with Hexham and District Music Society, on September 19. It will include pieces by Beethoven, Chopin and Prokofiev.

Dame Gillian Weir performs on the abbey organ on September 20, including Tavener's only organ piece, Mandelion.

The sound of gospel music will fill the abbey on September 21 when the female group Black Voices strives to outdo Whoopi Goldberg in the film Sister Act.

The Tallis Scholars, with a programme featuring John Tavener and his near-namesake John Taverner, the renaissance English composer, are the star act at the final Candlelight Concert on September 22.